Newfoundland is a spectacularly beautiful (in a harsh, windswept sort-of a way) island off the northeast coast of North America. I spent late 2021 there at Memorial University in St. John's, and, as is my natural habit, I set out to find as many animals as I could in my spare time. I was there only in the fall, so keep that in mind with respect to my comments on where and how to find things. I'll also include any advice I got from people who seemed to know what they were talking about.

Mammals

Woodland Caribou

There are small numbers scattered all over the island, including on the Avalon Peninsula, but the only place I saw them was along Highway 430, the highway that goes up the Great Northern Peninsula to St. Anthony. I heard that the area around Port-au-Choix is a particular hotspot for them, but I didn't go there. I saw two herds just from the highway, one around Portland Creek and the other near Green Island Cove.

Red Fox

There's a habituated family on the road to Cape Spear, right where the asphalt road turns into gravel. They approach cars like they're used to being fed, so drive carefully!

Canadian Beaver

Newfoundland is pock-marked with ponds and lakes, and you drive by them constantly on the highways. Many, many of these ponds have active-looking beaver dams and staking one out for a while would probably yield successful beaver sightings. I didn't do this, and I didn't see any beavers just with quick glances at the lakes as I wizzed by at 100km/hr. The only beaver I saw was in a pond on the hike to Gros Morne Mountain.

Ermine

The only small weasel present on the island, they're found all over the island but aren't easy to see. The only place I saw one was at the picnic area by the pond at the Memorial University Botanical Gardens. It was foraging around like it was used to being fed.

River Otter

Once again, the only one I saw acted like it was used to being fed. It was in the farm pond on the Skerwink Train and swam over to us as we approached the pond. We stood there watching it, as it swam back and forth, periscoping and watching us.

Meadow Vole

There seem to be lots of these on the Great Northern Peninsula but I didn’t see an evidence of them anywhere else. On the Great Northern Peninsula, I saw them at both Cape Norman and Flower's Cove.

Mystery Vole

I saw a vole with a distinctly yellowish head running between boulders at the base of Gros Morne, where the climb up the gully starts. If I were on the mainland, I would have confidently said it was a rock vole, but apparently those don't occur on the island. And because the place I saw it is so accessible, and is part of a national park, I suspect it has been thoroughly sampled. If a population of rock voles lived there, it would be known. So I've just chalked this one up as unidentifiable.

Atlantic White-sided Dolphin

These seem to be relatively common. We went on a boat tour from the Bonavista Peninsula at the end of October and we found a super-pod of hundreds of them. The water all around the boat was boiling with them, it was an amazing sight. Apparently these super-pods are a fall occurrence, they are seen in smaller groups in the summer and can be hard to find in the spring.

I also saw a small pod of them looking out from my cabin near Carbonear, one of the Mad Rock Cabins. And I found a dead one washed up near St. Anthony.

White-beaked Dolphin

The Sea of Whales tour operator, who took us to see the white-sided dolphins, told us that spring is the time to see these around Bonavista, and he doesn't see them in the summer or fall.

I saw them only from the Cape Norman lighthouse on the Great Northern Peninsula, a well-known whale-watching spot. Their dorsal fins are so big that at a distance I had trouble telling them from (female) orcas!

Minke Whale

I saw these surface-feeding from the Cape Norman lighthouse, in association with the white-beaked dolphins. It was very neat to watch their huge mouths come out of the water and go along the surface.

Harbour Seals

Apparently they very common, but I noticed a distinct lack of seals the entire time I was in Newfoundland. People there absolutely hate seals; they get a lot of blame for keeping the cod stocks from recovering, and I suspect seals are harassed in a lot of places. This was particularly apparent when I took the ferry to St Pierre and immediately spotted seals hauled out around the harbour there.

On Newfoundland itself, just about the only place I found seals is around the southern end of the Avalon Peninsula, in particular in the harbours along the Irish Loop.

Hooded Seals

These were the only seals I found that were not habour seals. I saw a few of these hauled out with some harbour seals at the Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve, at the first point where the trail to Watern Cove looks out over the shoreline. I’m not sure if they’re regular there, I was there after a big storm and they might have just been resting up. Also, this is a famous location for Ediacaran fossils, unfortunately the places they are visible are only accessible on guided tour.

Birds

There are too many birds to list and discuss. My full list for Newfoundland can be found on my eBird profile here. It's lacking the most famous bird for the area - Atlantic puffin - as they move offshore outside the breeding season.

Newfoundland gets lots of vagrants. There were several warblers, some rare even for Canada, hanging around into December. I didn't chase them down, but if you're into that sort of thing it'd be worth checking out eBird, the Newfoundland Birders Google Group, and Jared Clarke's Twitter to see what's around.

Bald Eagle

Common soaring around the coast and over the highways, even a long way inland (probably because of all the ponds and lakes), but definitely not as easy to find as on the coast of British Columbia or Alaska. The whale watching tour out of Bonavista (Sea of Whales) took us to an active nest.

Rock Ptarmigan

Just about the only place you can find them is on the peaks of the Long Range Mountains in western Newfoundland, and just about the only accessible peak is Gros Morne. I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of them - upwards of 20 - while walking across the plateau. Not sure if that's normal or if its been a particularly good year for them.

Boreal Chickadee

I rarely see these elsewhere in Canada, so it was a pleasure to discover that they are probably the most common forest bird on the Avalon Peninsula, where the black-capped chickadee is rare. Further west on the island the black-capped gets progressively more common and the boreal harder to see.

White-winged Crossbill

Common across the island wherever there are conifers. A rare treat for me elsewhere in Canada, it was great to see them so frequently.

Northern Fulmar

Hard to see. I saw them once from shore after a big storm, and once from the ferry to St Pierre.

Dovekie

Easy to see from shore in the late fall and winter. Very hard otherwise.

Reptiles

What reptiles? I didn't see a single reptile my entire time there, because there are almost none in Newfoundland. However, according to Sea of Whales, leatherback turtles seem to be getting more regular, to the point where it might just be possible to target them on a trip.

Amphibians

There aren't any amphibians native to Newfoundland, and the introduced ones are suprisingly hard to come across, despite the abundance of fresh water. I only saw green frogs and American toads once - driving along Route 73 at night during a rainstorm.

Other

Strombolites!

There are only a small handful of places in the world where strombolites exist. I had no idea that western Newfoundland was one of those places until I drove past a small, unassuming sign for a "strombolite walk" at Flower's Cove. These have to be the least promoted strombolites in the world. If you have the time, check them out! They are rare, weird, and totally underappreciated.

Some comments on stuff I didn't see

Orca - Sea of Whales tour operator out of Bonavista targets these in the fall, after the migratory whales have gone. But he still only sees them about once in every four trips. Gotta get lucky!

Seals - I was hoping to see bearded, harp, and ringed seals during my time on Newfoundland, but given how hard harbour seals were to find, I didn't maintain much hope. Apparently harp seals regularly haul up at some harbours (I was told Holyrood is a good spot) during the dead of winter. They are also regular in early spring on the ice that flows down from Labrador along the north shore. Bearded seals are uncommon and erratic but turn up regularly, apparently. Ringed seals are either very rare or are overlooked because they look so much like harbour seals.

Muskrat - Apparently there's been a steep decline in their population recently, and it's currently unknown why. They used to be very common but are now almost impossible to see.

Arctic Hare - Present only on the most barren tundra-like spots. I looked for them on top of Gros Mourne and at Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve but wasn't lucky enough to see one.

Willow Ptarmigan - Present all over the island but hard to see. Their population follows boom-and-bust cycles and I think I was there at a low ebb. I looked in several known spots and couldn't come up with one.

Leatherback Turtle - I was surprised to see pictures of these featured prominently on the websites of whale watching companies. It seems they are becoming a regular thing, which is very neat. The Sea of Whales boat tour out of Bonavista said he sees them mostly August-October and will see about one a week during that time. Not great odds, but a lot better than I was expecting! A biologist I talked to in Terra Nova National Parks also said he thinks they're becoming more regular in Newfoundland waters and suspects global warming may be responsible.